20 Surreal Drawing Prompts

Who doesn’t love surrealism? I think every other kid in my freshman drawing class at RISD emulated Salvador Dali’s style in their assignments – it was sort of comical. But obviously he made a strong impression on many budding artists.

Some of my favorite contemporary art pieces are surreal in nature, so I thought it would be a great idea to come up with some cool surreal drawing prompts for my fellow surrealism fans.

If you like these and want to brainstorm your own surreal drawing prompts afterwards, this is a good read by artist Kari Lilt on how she comes up with surrealist art ideas. Be sure to follow my ongoing lists of drawing prompts.

1. A human walking down a sidewalk, melting into it
2. A rabbit with human fingers for ears
3. A face morphing into a forest
4. Someone breaking through a curtain of water
5. Zoo animals on tall, skinny legs with wheels
6. Looking out through a house window into outer space
7. An egg cracking open to reveal an eye
8. Cars with wings driving on a road that abruptly bends 90 degrees down
9. Lamps growing outside in a garden plot
10. Giant eyeglasses as windows to an aquarium
11.  A human with antlers for arms and a spiral for their bottom half
12. A child ice skating in the clouds
13. A human holding their head, with a mirror where their head used to be
14. Animals walking on the ground that is actually a human lying on their side
15. Sailboats sailing across a large bed
16. Someone holding a house as an umbrella
17. Hands sitting on chairs having a dinner party where human heads are the bowls on the table
18. Cross section of the earth where each level is a different level of a home
19. Many birds inside of a trench coat, making the shape of a human wearing the coat
20. A man with a beard that is all plants and insects

As always, tag me @artmakespeople on Instagram or Facebook and show me your creations!

Download a pdf of these surreal drawing prompts by clicking the image below: